Month: January 2018

Alas, all good things must come to an end. My cover artist of the last couple of years, Jake Bullock, got a full-time job (good for him) and is prohibited from doing freelance projects (bad for me). The good news is that I had just finished The Chained Adept series, but I already had a cover from him for book 1 of The Affinities of Magic series. So I had to start over again for that.

Happily, I've partnered with a new cover artist from Poland, Michal Wojtasik.

His audition blew me away. I only asked for a simple sketch of the scene I had in mind, and look what I got, a day later.

Needless to say, he buried his competitors.

He's completed the cover for Structures of Earth and is working on the one for book 2, Fragments of Lightning. I'll be writing book 4 before I release the first 3 books in the series, one right after another, to try and build up some momentum for the new series.

Introduction

I'd like to focus on my own experience with Amazon AMS ads over the last 9 months.

For information about Amazon AMS ads in general, look for free introductory courses online, and I recommend some of the for-fee courses by people like Mark Dawson for in-depth guidance.

For context, here are some basics. (If you're already familiar with AMS ads, you can skip this.)

You can only run ads for your own book and, at this time, only for the US. Other regions are anticipated, e.g., the UK.

There are “Sponsored Product” ads (which show up at the bottom of product searches and below the “also-boughts”) and “Product Display” ads (which show up near the “Buy” button and on Kindle screensavers) — I'll only be talking about Sponsored Product ads

Each ad is a “campaign”. You supply up to 1000 keywords or keyword phrases for each campaign, and a maximum price you're willing to bid for the ad. You compete with other advertisers to show your ad prominently in its display area.

I call a cluster of campaigns for a single product (to use more than 1000 keywords) an “ad farm”.

You supply a 150-character ad copy, and Amazon supplies the book image from your book listing. There are restrictions on what you can claim in the ad (e.g., “Bestseller”).

Amazon will suggest some “automatic” keywords of minor usefulness, but I will be talking about the “manual” keywords I supply

You are charged the bid amount each time someone clicks on your ad, whether or not they buy your book once they look at the book's page. You are not charged for impressions (the display of your ad).

You set a daily budget for each campaign which caps the maximum spend. Raising the budget for a successful campaign does not necessarily make Amazon display the ad more frequently — it is difficult to really maximize the use of successful campaigns, once identified, aka “Amazon won't spend my money”.

Why Amazon Ads?

This post arose in response to an innocent question on a forum about “Why should I care about Amazon Ads?”

It's time to look back on 2017 and take stock — what worked, what didn't, and where I spent my time.

Accomplishments

Early in the year, just after I released the 4th and final book in The Chained Adept series (On a Crooked Track), I decided to pause my miscellaneous plans, including my audiobook recording, in order to devote the year to a major ascension of my learning curve for marketing, making 2017 the Year of Marketing.

Not all of this was finished in 2017, but everything except the Facebook Ads is now up and running, and the first FB ads should get implemented fairly early in 2018.

While I was doing all this technical stuff, I also tooled up in other ways — republished 20 titles, created ONIX records to make broad distribution more professional, and even added a fancy email signature with the new branding, for engaging with readers or fans.

On the publishing side, there were several unexpected developments.

* Two paid consulting gigs bringing manuscripts to market for a couple of authors, one a colleague and one a stranger.
* New imprints. Three old friends who are not in a position to get beyond the manuscript stage themselves (age, infirmity, tech competence) have manuscripts that need publishing, indie style. I have a long and trusted relationship with them, and it's a great way to get started publishing other authors

Finally, on the writing side, I was able to get some work done. I completed the paused Structures of Earth, the first book and prequel for the new series The Affinities of Magic. I'm well along on book 2 (Fragments of Lightning), and I've lined up a cover artist for the series since my old cover artist is no longer available (stay tuned for several cover reveals).